


Asymptotic, aphasic

by OhGoshOhJeez



Category: Spies Are Forever - Talkfine/Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Angst, Aphasia, Chronic Pain, HoH, M/M, Post Fall, i've never written about aphasia before so I apologize if anything is inaccurate, injuries, post fall injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22194862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhGoshOhJeez/pseuds/OhGoshOhJeez
Summary: Global aphasia is a severe form of nonfluent aphasia, caused by damage to the left side of the brain, that affects receptive and expressive language skills (needed for both written and oral language) as well as auditory and visual comprehension.-----
Relationships: Owen Carvour/Agent Curt Mega
Comments: 20
Kudos: 67





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing Owen noticed upon waking up was the loud, constant ringing in his ear. He winced, and tried to shift upright, his muscles protesting painfully. He slumped back down with a grunt.

The second thing he noticed upon waking up was,  _ holy shit, I’m alive. _

His eyes snapped open.

He squinted at the bright, fluorescent light above him, and let out a pained hiss through his teeth as it made his headache worse.

In fact, it seemed that there wasn’t a part of him that  _ didn’t _ hurt. He raised a hand up to his face, slowly, feeling something on top of his skin. He couldn’t see out of his left eye, and panicked for a moment, before realising that there were bandages wrapped around his head, blocking his vision.

Then panicked again as he thought about the implications of waking up with bandages wrapped around his eye.

He let out a loud groan, as the ringing in his ears worsened. He heard footsteps. Then talking. Someone was talking to him.

He couldn’t understand their accent, nor pick up what they were saying to him at all.

He tried to speak, but the words got caught on his tongue.

What he wanted to say was ‘Where am I?’ Or maybe ‘Where’s Curt?’. What came out was a series of jumbled syllables and moans.

A doctor came into view. His lips moved.

“Whuh-” Owen said. 

The doctor stopped, as if waiting for a reply.

Owen wanted to tell him that he didn’t understand, and that he was sorry.

He found that he’d forgotten how to form the words.

His heart pounded in his chest.

This must be a reaction to the drugs they’re giving me. Why can’t I speak? He thought.

Why can’t I understand him? Am I still in Russia? 

_ Where. _ He thought.  _ Where. Where. Just ask. _

The doctor leaned forward, and Owen flinched back. The man raised his hands up defensively, said more words that Owen couldn’t comprehend. He was holding a flashlight.

Owen sat still as the man pried his eyelids further apart, and shone the torch in. He gulped, feeling sweat form on his forehead.

“Where my?” Owen said. It was a start. “Where?”

The doctor sighed. 

Owen felt hot tears fill his uninjured eye. He wanted Curt, where was Curt?

  
  
  
  
  


\----------------------------------------------------

  
  


“We found him.” Cynthia said.

Curt let out a sigh of relief. Then his eyebrows furrowed.

“Alive, or...”

“Alive. Barely.” She took a long, long drag of her cigarette, Curt shifted in his seat, nervously. “You’ve really just... _fucked_ _me_ , you know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You saw him down there.”

“Yeah.”

“And you ran away like a little  _ pussy _ .” 

“Yeah.” He agreed. 

She sighed, and rubbed her temples. She wheeled her chair back and stood up, smoothing down her black skirt. 

“I gotta admit, when I was told one of the agents was MIA, I thought it was gonna be you. But no.”

Curt sniffled, and nodded solemnly.

“Oh, don’t give me that.” She said, rolling her eyes, but handed him a handkerchief out of her pocket. 

“It was a struggle getting him back from the Russians, but we pulled some strings.”

Curt’s eyes widened.

“Don’t tell me you made a deal with them.” 

“No.” She scoffed. “No, of course not, you fuckin’ dum dum. Unless filling the chests of thirty guards with bullets counts as cutting a deal.” 

He breathed out. Cynthia walked up to him. 

She flicked him on the forehead.

“Ow!”

“That’s for making me worry, you braindead idiot.”

“I’m sorry, okay?! There’s nothing I could have done.”

“Uh, well, let’s see mister smarty pants, you could have set the timer on the bomb for longer than  _ three minutes,  _ in fact, you didn’t need to detonate a bomb at all!” 

She flicked him again.

“Ow!! What was that for?!”

“For pissing me off!”

He groaned, and hid his face in his hands. She sighed again, and rubbed her forehead.

“We’ll get him back, Mega. I know you two are close.”

He opened his fingers, peeking at her between them.

“Don’t look at me like that, you don’t think I don’t notice when you come into work smelling like him?”

“How do you know how Owen smells-”

“I’m perceptive! Unlike you!”

“Ugh.” He bounced his leg, nervously. “So how do we get him back? When do we get him back?”

Cynthia breathed out, a cloud of smoke filling the air.

“As soon as the doctor clears him...Curt,” She started, not looking directly at him. 

“What?”

She folded her arms. She looked nervous. Too small. It wasn’t like her, it made Curt feel uneasy.

“The injuries he received, they were...” She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, turning away from him. “Extensive. I don’t know how bad they are but...I need you to know that he might not be the same as he was the last time you saw him.” 

Curt’s stomach dropped. 

“I-...”

“Look, go get some sleep, you-” She turned back to him, giving him a sympathetic look. “You fuckin’ need it. I’ll let you know if anything else happens.”

Curt nodded, and scratched the back of his neck, before standing up. 

“Thank you.”

She gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded. 

When Curt got home, he didn’t sleep. He drank, and tried his best not to imagine Owen, alone, in that hospital bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Owen’s days passed by in a blur. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was staring at the ceiling, letting time pass slowly. Doctors came, they changed his bandages, he still couldn’t understand them. 

No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t talk, either. Couldn’t get his mouth to form a full sentence. The words were  _ there,  _ he  _ knew them,  _ but he couldn’t fathom how to say them.

The doctors showed him graphs, words scribbled on a notepad that looked like a jumbled mess to him. When he only squinted at them in confusion, they seemed to get frustrated. 

His right arm was in a cast, his left was almost too painful to move, wrapped up with bandages up to his shoulder. 

When he could stand, finally, on wobbly legs, the first thing he did was find a mirror.

The left side of his face was covered in bandages, wrapped around his head, covering his eye. Dried blood spotted them, and he touched the red marks on the fabric with tentative fingers. 

His neck was marked an angry red, swollen, spreading down the side of his chest, down to his hips. He could barely touch there, it felt as though someone had scraped at his skin until it was raw. The area under and around his ribs was bruised, badly, and it hurt to touch. When he breathed in there was a sickening wheezing and rattling sound, confirming that at least a few of his ribs had been broken in the fall.

Owen licked his dry lips, and took in a shuddering breath, bringing up his shaking hand, slowly undoing the bandages around his head. He winced as the fabric gave way and his injured flesh met the cold air.

When his eyes caught his reflection again, he gasped, taking a step back.

The skin of his face was burned, badly. His flesh had dripped, melted like wax and set, resulting in a bumpy complexion. It was a deep red, and was dotted with sickly yellow boils, some of which had burst.

The thing that shocked Owen the most was his eye. It was completely shut over, his eyelids too swollen to open. He didn’t want to check, he felt too sick to do so, but he was sure that he’d lost his eye.

He hadn’t noticed he’d started crying until he felt tears stinging his face. He gripped the corner of the porcelain sink, ignoring the pain it caused, as his body shook with barely concealed sobs.


	3. Chapter 3

Barb sprinted over to Curt, and practically dumped all her supplies on the table he was sitting at.

“I didn’t really know what to bring, so I brought a little of everything!” She smiled, and pointed to the objects one by one. “I brought soup, some flowers, a new change of clothes for him to wear, a book for him to read, some snacks, pocket chess-”

“Barb..” Curt laughed. “I doubt he’ll really need all this stuff, the man is a minimalist.” 

She looked deflated for a moment, before quickly putting a smile back on again.

“Well, he can take his pick!”

Curt chuckled, taking a sip from his mug of coffee. His head still hurt from the night before. And the night before that. So maybe he’d been drinking a lot, so what? His lover was on death’s door, he deserved something to take his mind off of it.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Curt asked.

Barb gave him a sad expression that didn’t help soothe his anxiety over the situation.

“I think,” She pulled out a chair and sat across from him. “That he has a lot of great people for support.”

“But do you think he’ll be  _ okay? _ ”

She stared at him, her eyebrows furrowing, clearly not wanting to hurt him.

“I don’t know.”

“...Me either.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door of Owen’s room opened. He didn’t move, just continued to lay down on his side.

“I need to warn you, he’s become unresponsive. He’s barely spoken a word since he arrived here.” The doctor said to Curt. He nodded. “Other than that, he’s healing quite well. You can talk to him, if you’d like.”

“Yes,” Curt said.

Slowly, he walked over to Owen’s bedside, touching his shoulder, making him jump, and turn to face him.

His eyes widened, and he smiled, sitting up fast and wrapping his arms around Curt in a tight hug. Curt laughed and stroked his back.

“Happy to see me?” He said.

He felt Owen tense, and he pulled back. Owen’s face was full of concern, his lower lip trembled.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Owen’s breathing quickened, and he began to mouth something that looked like ‘no, no, no’. He held Curt’s face in his hands, and shook him gently.

“Owen, Owen, hey....”

Owen’s head dropped, defeatedly, and his hands moved down to Curt’s shoulders.

“What’s wrong with him?” Curt turned his head towards the doctor, his voice shaking.

“I- We thought we’d have better luck with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems that he hasn’t been able to understand what we’ve been saying to him. He hasn’t lost his hearing but...Words seem to be lost for him.”

“I don’t-” Curt sighed, stroking Owen’s back comfortingly as he felt him sob. “I don’t understand.”

“The left side of his head was badly injured, he suffered a lot of trauma to his skull and thus suffered trauma...To his brain.”

Curt held Owen tighter, taking a deep breath.

“So he’s brain-damaged?”

“Yes. We’ve been doing everything we can but-”

“And he can’t understand me? Or- Or anyone?”

“Yes.”

“How long will this last?”

“We aren’t sure.”

“Then- God- Can’t you fucking find out?!” Owen flinched against him as Curt raised his voice. He took a breath. “I’m sorry. Could you please just...Leave us?”

“Of course.” They said, leaving and shutting the door behind them. 

“Owen...” Curt whispered. “You need to understand. I’ll help you, we’ll- we’ll get through this.”

Owen mumbled something into his chest.

“What?”

He pulled back and looked up at Curt, his uninjured eye was red, tears staining his cheek.

“.....ur- ur...”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me, babe, it’s Curt.” He felt a lump in his throat and tried desperately to keep it together.

“C....” Owen sighed, frustrated. “C-...C..”

“It’s okay...It’s okay, we can work on it.”

Owen blinked, then hid his face in Curt’s chest again, hands grabbing at his shirt.


	4. Chapter 4

Owen wasn’t an idiot.

Owen remembered the mission going badly, remembered Curt’s slip-up with the bomb timer, remembered his own literal slip-up on the staircase. He remembered falling, then hitting the ground with a painful thud. He remembered staring up at his partner, who was still leaning over the railing. He remembered his vision going black.

He remembered some of the trip to the hospital. Someone was holding a bag of blood above him, a tube of the red liquid going into his arm. He could barely feel anything, but he saw doctors swarming around, trying to keep him alive. He remembered someone tearing open his shirt, remembered feverishly cursing to himself. He liked that shirt. Curt had bought it for him. Curt wasn’t there.

He could still hear, although words had become a bit of a foreign concept to him. He could see out of his right eye, that was good. He was still able to walk, barely.

He could still play chess when Curt visited him. He could still beat Curt at chess when Curt visited him.

He didn’t understand when Curt said “I love you.” On his way out. Didn’t understand when Curt asked him how he was feeling, if he needed anything. He couldn’t understand Curt’s profuse apologies, growing worried and concerned when Curt would suddenly start to hold him and cry, whispering into his ear. He would just wipe Curt’s tears away and wrap his arms around him, hoping that even though he didn’t know why he was crying, even though he couldn’t comprehend anything that his lover was saying, (no matter how hard he tried), he hoped that Curt understood how he felt in return. 

Owen’s mouth couldn’t formulate the words to say “I love you”, but he could still press his lips against Curt’s, like they always did before, and for a moment, everything felt okay, and that was enough.

Until it wasn’t.

  
\--------------------------------

  
Owen’s head was resting on Curt’s chest. He listened to the slow, steady beating of his heart, one arm wrapped around his midsection. Curt was running his hands through Owen’s hair, being careful to dodge where the bandages were wrapped. He was humming softly, a song that Owen recognised but couldn’t put a name to.

Owen jumped when he heard unintelligible yelling coming from outside his room, almost hitting Curt’s chin with his skull. 

“Whoa.” Curt said, removing Owen’s arm from his side, getting up. Owen grabbed his wrist.  
“It’s okay, I’m just gonna see what’s going on.” He said, in a calming voice, as if he were comforting a scared animal. Owen let him go and brought his knees up to his chest as Curt crossed the room, peeking out the door.

Four doctors were wheeling a patient who was strapped to a bed. There looked to be about three shots to his torso, and he was thrashing and yelling as they tried to calm him. Curt leaned out the door, watching them until they ran down the corridor and out of sight. 

He shut the door, looking back at Owen and smiling.

“Looks like someone had a rough night.” He said. Owen’s eye was still wide, scared. 

Curt crawled onto the bed beside him once again. 

“Nothing to worry about.” He rubbed the back of Owen’s hand with his thumb, before interlocking their fingers. Owen let out a small sigh of relief, before curling up next to Curt, head resting on his shoulder.

“You’re like a cat, you know?” Curt chuckled.

He shifted slightly, and the movement caused Curt’s shoulder to brush against the bandaged side of his face. Owen pulled back with a pained yelp, his hand immediately coming up to protect his eye.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, babe!” 

Owen hissed through his teeth. When he pulled back his hand, Curt could see a small patch of blood seeping through the fabric.

“Aw, Owen, here, let me-” He reached out his hand, attempting to touch the bandage, only to have it swatted away fast.

“N-No!”

Curt blinked. Owen panted, shifting away until he was almost off the bed completely, his hands braced behind him.

“Owen...” 

Owen brought up a shaky hand, waving it in a “Stop” motion.

“No.”

There was a silence between them, Curt wasn’t quite sure what to say, and Owen didn’t know how to say anything except what he just learned.

“Okay. Okay, I’m sorry. Will you at least let the doctor look at it when he comes back?” Curt said. Then remembered that Owen couldn’t understand. He sighed.

“They need to be changed.” He made an unwrapping motion around his head, hoping that Owen would pick up on it.

Owen shook his head.

“You’ve bled through them, you need-”

“N-o.”

“Okay.”

Curt paused, then slowly reached out his hand, taking Owen’s in his. Owen was still on edge, looking at him nervously.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to while I’m here. Not yet.”

Owen sighed and wrapped his arms around Curt, pulling him close. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen learns a lot of new words, but gets caught up on one in particular.

“He learned a new word last night.” Curt said, pouring an ungodly amount of sugar into his coffee cup.

“Oh?” Barb asked, looking up from her clipboard that she was writing chicken-scratch notes into.

“He learned how to say ‘No’.”

“Oh.” Barb said again, in a disappointed tone.

“He didn’t want me to change his bandages.” Curt drummed his fingers on the table. “I don’t wanna....Pressure him.”

“Are you sure you’re ready to see what he looks like under there?”

“Of course I am.” Curt thought about it. He knew he would love Owen no matter what he looked like, but the thought of seeing Owen’s scars, how much inevitable pain they would cause him... “I think I am.”

“Have you thought about trying to teach him new words?”

“Yeah, I try every day that I’m there, he doesn’t understand anything I say.”

“Well, clearly he understands some of it if he learned how to say no.”

“....Huh.”

“Curt, Owen suffered from an extreme head injury. His perisylvian cortex was damaged, which means that his speech development has basically reset itself.” She said, so fast that it took Curt a moment to process.

“So, you’re saying that.....” He trailed off.

“He‘s learning words like a newborn would. He’s taking in what’s being said around him, even if he doesn’t understand most of it. You should try learning him one word at a time. You never know.”

“...You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks, Barb.”

She smiled brightly, and went back to writing in her notes.

——————————————-

“Hey, babe!” Curt said, laughing when Owen smiled and sat up to greet him with a hug. “Good to see you, too.”

“You feelin’ okay?” He petted the top of Owen’s head and Owen shrugged.

“I brought somethin’ for you.” Curt unzipped his tattered backpack and pulled out a small photo album. Owen moved to the side to allow Curt space to sit next to him. He patted the bed. Curt chuckled and sat down across from him, cross legged, opening the album on his lap.

“I thought that since you’re only allowed family visitors, I could bring your friends to you like this.” He flipped to a picture of Cynthia and held it up for him to see.

“This is Cynthia, remember?” 

Owen smiled, raising his eyebrows. 

“Cynthia. And then...” He flipped to a picture of Barb. She had a flask in one hand and a notepad in the other, the ends of her hair looked frazzled. Owen laughed.

“Barb.”

Owen took the album from him, flipping the pages fast until he found what he was looking for. A picture of Curt. He was laying in bed, shirtless, a bandage wrapped around his shoulder and arm after a not-no-successful mission. He was smiling, giving the camera a tired thumbs up. 

“Ah, that’s your favourite, huh?” Curt chuckled. 

“Mm.” Curt didn’t know if Owen was responding to what he said or if he was just making a noise of approval, but he was holding the album close to his chest fondly.

“Not a bad gift, huh? Now you can see my pretty face even when I’m not here.”

Owen looked back at the picture and pointed at it. 

“Curt.” He said, looking proud of himself.

“Yeah! Good job, babe. Curt.”

Owen held a hand up to his own chest, his eyebrows furrowed.

“You’re Owen.” Curt reminded. 

“Owen, and-?“ He flipped back to Cynthia’s page. 

“Cynthia.” Curt replied. 

Curt could see that Owen was thinking about repeating it, but gave up.

“That’s a hard one, don’t worry. Oh, and ‘kiss’.” Curt said, leaning in and pressing his lips against Owen’s softly. When he pulled back, Owen was smiling, a blush on his cheeks.

“Kiss. And then-“

“Kiss.” Owen said, pulling Curt into another one. 

“Yeah, kiss. Then we have-“

“Kiss.” Owen said, demandingly.

“Yeah, we’ve done that one, babe.”

Owen fisted a hand in Curt’s shirt and pulled him close, his eye pleading with him.

“Kiss.”

“Okay.” Curt laughed, kissing Owen once again, longer this time, Owen sighing, contentedly. 

“You like this word a lot, huh? Don’t you wanna learn any more?”

“ _ Kiss me.” _

Curt smiled. They could leave learning for another day. How could he refuse? 


End file.
